Synth Bank Prices

[TiUser]

To be honest, a price is hard to find for a sound bank.

It not only depends on how long the designer needs but how many are sold and that's difficult to rate for me.

Lets assume a sound designer charges $1000 per week and sells 100 sound sets so 20 bucks would be acceptable. No clue if these numbers are realistic...

It also depends on how much you fancy with it - but it's usually hard to check out these sounds before you purchase them and demo tracks do not answer the question of playability.

Looking at "synth sounds" in general, there is so much around - do we really need more sound banks? Can't we just modify what's already around?

I personally miss affordable and playable realistic sounds - i.e. sounds that are convincing played on a keyboard - without ton's of complicated key switches to activate two dozen articulations... without minutes loading times for GB's of samples which make instantly switching sounds an university degree process to set up...

Even with synth's I miss other things than more sound banks... like glitch free switching to the next sound - ideally with proper sustaining of the last one. But I know - this is real change in underlying technology and payed worse to a couple of "new" sounds.

[Count_fuzzball]

To be honest, a price is hard to find for a sound bank.

It not only depends on how long the designer needs but how many are sold and that's difficult to rate for me.

Lets assume a sound designer charges $1000 per week and sells 100 sound sets so 20 bucks would be acceptable. No clue if these numbers are realistic...

It also depends on how much you fancy with it - but it's usually hard to check out these sounds before you purchase them and demo tracks do not answer the question of playability.

Looking at "synth sounds" in general, there is so much around - do we really need more sound banks? Can't we just modify what's already around?

I personally miss affordable and playable realistic sounds - i.e. sounds that are convincing played on a keyboard - without ton's of complicated key switches to activate two dozen articulations... without minutes loading times for GB's of samples which make instantly switching sounds an university degree process to set up...

Even with synth's I miss other things than more sound banks... like glitch free switching to the next sound - ideally with proper sustaining of the last one. But I know - this is real change in underlying technology and payed worse to a couple of "new" sounds.

Regarding loading up GBs of samples with five zillion different articulations, I personally would agree that sample library devs need to implement an open, editable format for editing patches (I.e being able to remove/stretch samples) instead of trapping them inside of VSTI players.

That way, the user can decide whether or not to remove some samples and stretch the remaining ones, so they can get faster loading times at the expense of possible noticable artifacts.

[TiUser]

...not to sound offensive but as long as sample based VSTi's need significant loading time to call a new patch there will be arguments for HW sample modules - regardless of sound quality.

It's even more frustrating to see that HW workstations go the pc way, needing minutes to boot because they load samples in their ram too..

VST synths can recall patches nearly instant too like their HW counterparts - this is where soft should go, not vice versa.

...maybe this discussion should be opened in another thread?...

[Kriminal]

...not to sound offensive but as long as sample based VSTi's need significant loading time to call a new patch there will be arguments for HW sample modules - regardless of sound quality.

It's even more frustrating to see that HW workstations go the pc way, needing minutes to boot because they load samples in their ram too..

VST synths can recall patches nearly instant too like their HW counterparts - this is where soft should go, not vice versa.

...maybe this discussion should be opened in another thread?...

what would you consider a reasonable price for a bank of 128 sounds for a soft synth. Not a set of samples or samples/presets, just straight up preset sounds for a synth you use...

[Wildfunk]

A soundset below 10€ can't be good! I expect 95% useless patches then (i made this experience in the past).

For me personally a good price is between 20€ - 30€, maximum is 50€.

As said before: Depends also of course for what synth.

[darsho]

for the record, this is not a loaded question, just curiosity. Im not asking to get a reference point for my own work. Im not planning on making and selling soundbanks. Im just curious, so dont let the fact it is me asking influence your reply

so, here is the deal:

what would you consider a reasonable price for a bank of 128 sounds for a soft synth. Not a set of samples or samples/presets, just straight up preset sounds for a synth you use...and lets assume you like the demo of the soundbank and would like to buy it (not a shit bank, obviously)





thank you for your time

I only ever buy Softsynths which already have a lot of presets. So I can't see the need to obtain more presets for extra money.

With Freeware Synths I feel it's ok if they come with relatively few presets, but I wouldn't buy any extra ones then, either.

sorry.

[Lotuzia]

I only ever buy Softsynths which already have a lot of presets. So I can't see the need to obtain more presets for extra money.

With Freeware Synths I feel it's ok if they come with relatively few presets, but I wouldn't buy any extra ones then, either.

sorry.

Dont be sorry cos this one might be rather easy to answer.

Reading your words the only way to get extra sounds is to get extra synths (and eventually buy them if theyre commercial)

But ......

Another soundset for one of your existing synths will usually bring you a lot of extra instruments while

1/ Beeing far less expensive than buying a newx synth
2/ Different instruments with a different approach than factory lib (due to the diff. sound designers personnality and skills ) --> much wider sound palette
3/ You dont have to "learn" a new synth, even the basics. You get deeper in the knowning of your synths : You save time and money while increasing knowledge.
4/ You dont have to install a new synth, deal with installations, autorisations,back ups, eventually dongles, aso

So after all buying soundsets might not be such a bad idea ?

What do you think ?

LtZ

[darsho]

you can be convincing, yet I'd rather program sounds myself if I should miss a particular sound.
Also I must say, I must have thousands of factory presets with some of the synths that I already have. I won't be able to listen to them all ever.....but good luck with your sound-sale

[tehlord]

I'd say $15-20 sounds right. I'd love to sell my crap for that............

It's taking longer and longer to program patches it seems. Synths are getting so complex that it takes half the time just filling up the Mod Matrix with wheel, aftertouch, velocity etc and in the case of say Alchemy it's XY pads and performance section to assign. It's getting to be too much work to create commercial patches as people rightfully so expect patches to take full advantage of a synth's capabilities. I'm too lazy....

+1

This is why yours are worth the money Mr Lee.

The mod wheel stuff is always spot on.

50% of the soundbanks I buy down't even bother with this.

[ao_ks]

Hi guys,

What do you think about Kreativ Sounds' "PAY WHAT YOU WISH" method for sound banks?

[JavaJ]

I think you have to look at what the average price per sound is from other companies- like NI or Spectrasonics.

If Omnisphere is selling for $499 for and has 4222 patches (not including soundsources)- that is 11.8 cents per patch. So 128 patches with the known quality of the Spectrasonic team is worth roughly $15.

This is how I would look at it- so a 3rd party company just doing patchwork- I would expect to pay $5-10 per 128 patches (why on earth do we have to stick with the old 128 patch bank idea anyways).

[Wildfunk]

I think you have to look at what the average price per sound is from other companies- like NI or Spectrasonics.

If Omnisphere is selling for $499 for and has 4222 patches (not including soundsources)- that is 11.8 cents per patch. So 128 patches with the known quality of the Spectrasonic team is worth roughly $15.

Yep but how many of those 4222 patches are really fitting my needs? Perhaps 5%.

[Lotuzia]

I think you have to look at what the average price per sound is from other companies- like NI or Spectrasonics.

If Omnisphere is selling for $499 for and has 4222 patches (not including soundsources)- that is 11.8 cents per patch. So 128 patches with the known quality of the Spectrasonic team is worth roughly $15.

This is how I would look at it- so a 3rd party company just doing patchwork- I would expect to pay $5-10 per 128 patches (why on earth do we have to stick with the old 128 patch bank idea anyways).

There are many variations in these patches, not really duplicates but sometimes not so far. and btw a lot of them have been sold numerous times under different product names so that if youre following spectrasonics for many years you would have paid twice at least for them

And I love Omnisphere but well ........

LtZ

[UncleAge]

There are a couple of factors at play in making my decision. And keep in mind, this is if I really like the bank of 128 presets.

1. How capable am I at programming the synth? If its a synth like Blue, then I might raise the bar a bit. Its not an easy synth for me to program so there's a higher perceived value in that type of preset.

2. Am I totally amazed when I hear it. And by that I don't mean just the "super wow never will use it in a song stuff" but also the "hey I think I can learn something from that" kind of preset.

3. What are my needs at the moment. If I'm not in the market for more "xxxxx" then I'm less likely to part with any cash to get it, no matter how good it sounds.

I'd say that my top number would be about $35-$40. And the comfortable number is around $25. This is not to say that a number like $50-$60 is outrageous. In fact I think its quite fair. But its not a number that triggers an impulse buy. And I'm very likely to compare preset banks much more thoroughly (SD vs. SD) than at a lower price point.

[AnalogGuy1]

Here's a dissenting minority opition: I play classic rock, and my ability to program a sound on Massive, Pro-53, Abynth, or Zebra is like watching a 5 year old type...I can do it, but it takes me perhaps 5 hours for me to get a single sound just right, and that over perhaps a week to combat ear fatigue. And then when I get it just right, I have to tweak once again when playing with my band because then it mysteriously sounds completely different. Stuff that's probably obvious to SD's, but not for me.

So, back to the OP: I'd pay $0 for electronica glitches that didn't appear in 60's, 70's, 80's sounds, but I'd happily part with $100 for a set of 50 sounds that are named after their corresponding classic rock / 80's pop well-known song.